Why I teach

Hello,

The last quarter of the year is well underway, as are a number of engagements during which I am advising executives on fostering, navigating, and advocating for positive, impactful change.

Amid this backdrop, I encountered another side of innovation when my daughter received a terrifyingly accurate extortion threat by email. While fortunately, it was deemed to be fake, the letter got me thinking about the following: what happens when innovation skills get into the wrong hands?

Take for example:

• The ability of the 9/11 attackers to see airplanes as weapons.
• The emergence of new business models like Cyber-as-a-Service (Caas) and Ransomware-as-a-Service (Raas)
• Deepfake technology for fraud, blackmail, and social engineering
• Dark web marketplaces and cryptocurrencies
• Social media for terrorist radicalization and recruitment

How might we work together to out-innovate the few bad actors who have demonstrated their potential to disrupt? I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts and finding ways to work on this together.

Please read on for insights on the innovation follower vs. leader debate, an inside look into my work on advisory boards, and more.

Innovation Follower vs. Innovation Leader

Are you an innovation follower or leader?

When I served as a corporate innovation executive, I worked with colleagues who argued against our innovation investments. Instead, they urged us to allow competitors to “take the risk” — and for us to “sit back and reap the rewards of their efforts.”

It’s been proven: the “fast follower” strategy isn’t a good one. 

Not only have I seen this time and time again in real life, but McKinsey concurs in its article, “How innovation can accelerate industry momentum” — sharing that breakout innovations deliver better returns.

Know this: no matter how good your tech is, how much capital you’ve raised, or how strong your technical and functional knowledge, if you are not set up for change that meets real needs, you will have little chance of succeeding. 

So, is your team up to date on effective strategies to plan for and implement change? Has your organization looked past “change management” orthodoxies that generally lead to failure? How does your company foster a culture of innovation? How do leaders overcome the inevitable resistance to change? I’d love to hear about your experiences, share the work I am doing with other organizations and in the classroom, and see how I can help. 

Inside Advisory Boards

As a member of several advisory boards, I’m privileged to repurpose my decades of experience as a corporate marketing, digital, and innovation executive — and make an impact on companies whose products, services, and leadership I believe in.

Here’s what I bring to each of my advisory relationships:

1. Intensive customer listening that ultimately puts the customer — and their non-obvious needs and wants — at the center like never before, creating true business impact
2. Practical experience in pursuing and scaling innovations
3. Digital and multi-channel marketing performance expertise, including how AI is being used to achieve quantum leaps in results
4. An executive-level perspective on what accomplishing change requires, with an understanding that traditional change management tools no longer work
5. Real-world experience in how to commercialize ideas and drive execution

Interested in learning more? Feel free to respond to this email. 

Recently, my contribution to Fast Company’s piece, “Thinking about an adjunct teaching position? 16 factors to consider” received a lot of interest. Teaching Columbia’s “Strategic Advocacy” course has enabled me to:

1. Leverage my expertise to enable the success of fellow change makers and innovators.
2. Strengthen skills that transfer directly into client workshops and other engagements.
3. Access the resources of one of the top universities in the world.
4. Forge new relationships and experience true joy.

Most of all, I’m proud to use my practical knowledge and visionary expertise to get to the root of stakeholder expectations and execute fresh, innovative outcomes in a wide variety of settings. 

Interested in what this might look like for your organization? Send me a message.

Warm regards,